


Dawnlight, After Champagne

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: #48 verse [5]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M, New Year's Eve, Resolution, Tryptich
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 19:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17230118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: A toast to midnight, dawn, and all the moments in between. Three New Years in the endless entanglement of Batman and Joker, the Before and the After.





	Dawnlight, After Champagne

[Four Years Ago]

The towering screens of the city flash and glitter with festive advertisements, gold ribbon and digital snow, while far below, the crowd gasps and cries out. Their pointing fingers are a forest of mittens and gloves. Confetti still twists through the air between skyscrapers, pink and blue and white, and above it all:

The Joker swings down from the countdown mechanism, as the T - 60 shines up into the clouds like a perverse bat symbol. The red numbers begin to tick down. The gold foil of the giant champagne bottle crinkles and wrinkles—Bats is wriggling again.

“Now now,” Joker says, shaking one gloved finger, “no point in that. You think I don’t know how to truss up my favorite toy after all this time?”

At his feet, scattered across the rooftop, the limp bodies of security guards gather snow and loose confetti. One of them lets out a soft moan. Joker taps his chin for a moment, thoughtfully, and then pushes the little blue bastard over the side of the building with one firm heel-kick. He listens for a moment, but—disappointingly—no one provides the Wilhelm scream.

“Oh well,” he sighs.

“ _Joker_ ,” Bats growls, so sharp and low that it sends tingles down the Joker’s spine. “I’m the one you want, leave the civilians _alone_.”

“Oh, you _are_ ,” Joker says, strolling across the snowy rooftop, “but I already _have_ you, don’t I?”

Oh, he’s so _desperate_ , it’s so _sweet_. They both know he can’t do a blessed thing about who the Joker does or doesn’t decide to play with up here.

Bats grits his teeth. He’s always doing that—he must have a hell of a bat-dentist tucked away in that collection of his. Above both of them, the countdown flashes its inexorable parade of numbers.

“This is a _real_ new year’s, eh Batsy?” Joker says, rapping the green glass of the bottle with the back of his knuckles. “Snow, lights, champagne… a countdown—”

Bats is still wriggling in there, but the Joker is confident in his ability to keep his darling enemy wrapped up good and tight. At least for the time being. The timer hits thirty seconds.

“I think I’ve just about got the whole thing covered,” Joker concludes, “just about everything but the kiss!”

He slaps the glass and whirls away, leaping from the platform to the railing around the countdown mechanism, coattails flapping in the night.

“Now I’ve never been one for new years’ resolutions,” he calls, as he scales the railing, “I mean, why fix it if it ain’t broke? But I’ll grant you that I’m looking forward to a new year of fresh mayhem! Too bad you won’t be there to see it, eh sweetheart?”

“Joker-!” the Bat growls, but it’s pointless and they both know it. They’re _well_ past the stage of threats and bargains. Joker has everything he wants. Right here.

“Keep your eyes on me!” Joker calls to him. “You wouldn’t want to miss the big moment, would you?”

Fifteen. Ten.

Of _course_ he doesn’t want the Bat to die. What kind of fun would that be! What would he do _then?_   Oh, he fully expects that Batsy will wriggle his way out at the last second, just in the nick of time, save the day, yadda yadda _yawn_. But that’s the point of it. If Joker doesn’t try his damndest to eradicate the little rodent, it’s not really _winning_ to beat him, is it?

Show me, Joker thinks, with his heart in his throat. Breathless and straining to the tips of his toes, Joker grips the rails. The stars pop and sparkle in his eyes. This is all he needs, all he’s ever asked for—to be part of the moment when Sampson brings down the temple of Delilah, when the man gives way to the myth.

Lights! The rumble of machinery! The fizzle and pop of champagne! Three! Two! One!

Joker blows a kiss, his vision blinded with carbonation and stars.

 

✭✭✭

 [One Year Ago]

There’s glitter on the floor of the penthouse. Jack wanders through the festival wreckage, the empty bottles in piles and the strewn party crackers, the faint smell of smoke on each of their candy-shaped husks. Paper masks half dissolved in spilled champagne. He shakes his head, a bemused smile pulling at his mouth, as he considers the extravagant mess. He tugs a green streamer down from the chandelier and twirls it up around his fingers.

Outside the grand double doors to the balcony, he can see the first grey sigh of dawn building below the edge of the world. It’s six-something in the morning, and there is a beautiful, frazzled supermodel asleep in the chair beside the window, her long legs splayed like a raggedy-anne doll forgotten mid-tea-party. She lets out the tiniest snore, one foot bare and one foot still in its blue silk shoe. Jack muffles a laugh behind his glove so as not to burst the quiet lull in the penthouse.

The Wayne’s penthouse overlooks Gotham’s most fashionable neighborhood, although now, in the early morning dimness, it’s hard to make out the old world flourishes that its architects spent so much money on establishing. If he squints, he can _just_ make out a copper water spout shaped like an ill-tempered fish.

The fish eases his nerves. He feels much more at home in the company of the city’s many, _many_ gargoyles than he does among its resentful and borderline hostile populace. For now it’s just him and the grumpy copper fish and the snoring supermodel, and the gentle clink of glass bottles as Bruce Wayne—unaware of the company—stoops to herd yet another forgotten object into a trash bag.

“I thought you had people to do that?” Jack says; softly, so as not to wake Melissa Van Horner, _Elle_ Magazine covergirl two springs consecutively.

Bruce almost jumps—the bottles clink in his trashbag. When Bruce turns around, there’s a moment of such pure _pleasure_ that it takes Jack’s breath away. Bruce’s eyes widen, his breath draws in sharply, and for a moment Jack is overwhelmed with how happy Bruce looks, how happy they both are in this spun-glass moment of simply existing. The two of them just look at each other, cans and confetti strewn between them; Jack with his hands in his pockets, Bruce with his bottles and bag.

If only the world could be this one moment—the light in Bruce’s eyes, the sincerity, the surprise of the joy itself—if only Jack could live in this moment forever, and never wonder again what his place or his purpose in the world should be.

“I, um,” Bruce says, and then clears his throat, breaking the stare. He shakes the cola bottle in his hand, still a little cola at the bottom. “I thought I’d get a jump start on it. I have cleaners coming in later today, but—this place is a catastrophe, to be honest. They’re going to be working the stains out of the carpet for ages.”

Jack gives the carpet a thoughtful look. He’s got a point. There are worse things than cola involved, at this stage.

“So I thought I’d,” Bruce says, “you know. Take care of the recyclables myself.”

“Nice thought,” says Jack, who would definitely never clean anything ever again if he could afford to pay someone else to do it.

“Honestly I didn’t expect—” Bruce puffs out a sigh, forehead creasing. “This is the first big social event I’ve thrown since they pulled me out of the caverns two months ago. I didn’t expect high society to be so…”

“Careless?”

 Bruce shrugs, a little self conscious. “Messy,” he says.

Jack hums something like an agreement. He reaches down and fishes a piece of fine china from a pile of fallen streamers.

“What happened to you stopping by?” Bruce says.

“I am stopping by,” Jack says. The plate is broken, its translucent edges as sharp and brittle as a one-use weapon. “What else do you call this?”

“For the _party_ ,” Bruce says, exasperation barely covering the amusement Jack can still hear in his voice. “I hope you didn’t think I was kidding about the invitation. I would have loved to have you here for it. There’s only so much _yes Mr. Wayne, no Mr. Wayne_ I can take before I have to fake a phone call from the CEO of the Oriental Trading Company and hide in my office.”

Jack purses his lips, flips over the china in his hands. “I don’t think your crowd woulda liked me very much. Anyways, I’da just hung onto your sleeve all night like some kinda limpet, and you don’t need to be babysitting me on top of everything else. But I wake up early for the butcher’s shop anyway, figured I’d come by and see how it all went off.”

Bruce frowns at him. “I _wanted_ you to come,” he says. “If you hung onto my sleeve, I wouldn’t mind. I missed you tonight.”

Warmth gathers under Jack’s collar. He thumbs the glittering golden patterns on the china in his hands. “Yeah, well. Here I am?”

“You missed the glamorous part,” Bruce remarks, a sideways smile on his handsome mouth. He holds out the trash for Jack, who reluctantly discards the broken chunk of china with what appears to be _real_ gold leaf. “All that’s left now is the clean-up.”

Jack cranes his head back, whistles at the mess hanging from the light fixtures. “No kidding,” he says.

“I’ll leave that for the professionals with the ladders,” Bruce sighs, a hint of a laugh breaking the edges of his voice. “If you’d like something to drink, I know we have left over wine in the kitchen. Just let me wrap up here and I’ll find you something.”

Jack hums again, considering the wreckage and the glitter and the way Bruce is still moving, still sorting, an automaton unable to rest. He’s got a feeling Bruce is going to crash hard later today, but not for hours yet. For someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Bruce sure doesn’t like to sit idle. Bruce likes to be working. Bruce likes to be _doing._

Jack, who is so wound up with nervous energy that he slept perhaps two hours tonight, feels that he can understand that.

He rolls up his sleeves. “Don’t trouble yourself, bubelah,” he says. “Just find me one of those bags, and we’ll see what we can knock out before the cleaners get here.”

“You don’t have to do that—” Bruce starts.

“Pish posh,” Jack says, and shoots him a sparkling grin. “Two sets of hands are faster than one, right?”

Bruce eyes him uncertainly. Jack lifts his hands, all white leather and neat seams, and wiggles his fingers in what he expects is a charming, jazzy little gesture of intent. Bruce starts laughing.

Every time, every single time, his laugh makes Jack feel like something inside him has slipped home—a key into a lock, a loadstone into an arch—

“Come on,” Jack says, invigorated, plucking the bag out of Bruce’s hands, “you can tell me about what Ms. Van Horne over there did to deserve having one of her shoes launched into the ceiling.”

Still laughing, Bruce hides his mouth behind his fist and follows Jack’s gaze up to the single stiletto heel, satin blue, wedged into the plaster ceiling by the spike as surely as if it had been heeled with a real stiletto. “Oh god,” he wheezes. “How did they _do_ that?”

Dawn is welling up at the edge of the world; the night is melting down into the storm drains of the city, draining from the sky like rain; in the courtyard a young woman stumbles into the waiting cab of a taxi with her shoes slung over her fingers.

Gotham may own Bruce’s midnights, but Jack—whatever little he may be—would happily take the morning and the dawn, today and every day, any day, for as long as he is able.

 

 ✭✭✭

 [Now]

A man who could be very _very_ nearly mistaken for John Doe throws open the door to the ballroom, the grand hall of the Gotham Ritz, and adjusts the cufflinks of his suit. Tonight he is all red silk and white piping, a circus-dream of a military parade. The tailors in this town certainly remember him, regardless of how long he’s been away. It’s ship-shape work, just right to his measurements.

He pauses at the top of the staircase, a hip against the banister, and watches the people below as they titter and toast each other, sparkling masks in the shapes of butterflies and felines. He tsks. _Anyone_ could be underneath those. Like the one he wears now, obscuring the new-old features of his new-old face. They really never do learn, do they?

 Ah, Gotham. Resilient and stubborn, greedy, virulent. Like a rat in a jeweled collar, like a gold-encrusted cockroach.

Despite the music, no one is dancing. It’s a big brassy sound, with a swing to it that would make the perfect overture to an invitation. What a _waste._ These prim high society types don’t seem to be dressed for it, he’ll give them that much sympathy—he can spot a fair share of skirts that would probably rip their seams at the first two-step. By the time he spots who he’s looking for amongst the crowd, he’s already several stages deep into daydreaming up a scheme that would result in popping every stitch of Armani clothing in this joint. What’s the Music Meister up to these days? Maybe he’d be interested in a team up.

A saxophone croons into the piping of the horn section. He comes down the stairs at an easy stroll, lifting a glass from the tray of a passing waiter as he goes. It tastes clear and sharp, slightly sweet—it tastes like yellow starlight, like the last second of a countdown, like suddenly seeing someone you thought you might never see again.

For a moment Bruce doesn’t recognize him. It’s the Italian mask, classic and slightly monstrous; it covers most of the face. Whatever it is that Bruce recognizes in him, when his breath catches all at once and his fingers still on his glass, it isn’t as crass as a matter of flesh, of faces. They’ve never needed faces to know each other, not before, and certainly… certainly not now.

“Jack,” says the shape of his mouth. There’s moment of fumbling as Bruce shoves his glass into the hands of his nearest companion, blind. _He_ isn't wearing a mask, but then, that kind of irony might be tempting fate too far.

Lips peel back from teeth. Jack crosses the floor as Bruce takes a step towards him, and then another, as if caught in a dream.

It’s been more than a month since the caverns and the light, the rebirth. He wonders if Bruce had thought him gone forever, at last—after all these years of driving each other to the brink of sanity and suffering, if the delicate surgery of being trusted had finally done what ten thousand beatings and imprisonments could not manage.

Oh, not to worry, Brucie darling. It takes more than that to drive away the monster who loves you.

He sweeps in, glass in hand, grinning. “The old boys sure can play!” Jack says, giving the bandstand a broad gesture and Bruce himself a knowing look. Behind Bruce, several other guests exchange puzzled glances.

“Jack,” Bruce says again. His voice _aches_ with hope, with longing, but he’s not as naïve as he once was, apparently. He holds himself steady, waiting for the other shoe to drop, drawn as tight as a bowstring.

It’s good. Jack approves. Jack approves, absolutely, and yet—and _yet_ —something wounded and animal in the depth of his heart hates this, the distance, the necessary mistrust.

Jack knocks back champagne. He shoves the glass away. He takes Bruce's arm.

“I know you know how to dance to this,” Jack says, settling a hand over the small of Bruce’s back. “Give me a spin.”

Bruce hesitates, but only for a moment; then Bruce draws him in tight, the warm cage of his arms as secure as any restraint. The dance is as easy as breathing, simple steps and a fluid whirl, and Jack can feel how much Bruce doesn’t want to let him go even as he acquiesces to the footwork of the dance. That wounded animal heart pounds against Jack’s ribcage, his fingers shake when he forces them to part from the firmness of Bruce’s body.

Flickers and flashes of gold and silver catch the light as people turn to watch them, surprise registering in the growing undercurrent of whispers.

“Hm,” Jack says, willing his voice to remain light and careless, “you’d think they never saw a couple of guys dancing together before.”

“They’re thinking they haven’t seen me dance with _anyone_ ,” Bruce says, grimly, "since my boyfriend went missing in a _terrorist_ attack."

“Not once?” Jack breathes.

“No,” Bruce says, reeling Jack into a spin. The toe of a boot twists on the walnut floorboards, anticipation soars from Jack’s belly into the knot of his throat—for the fraction of a second he is in free fall, thrown and not yet caught, hoping—hoping—

Bruce catches Jack against his chest. “Not once,” he says.

Jack unwinds from him and they fall back into step, face to face.

“Where have you been?” Bruce asks, and he does a good job of masking the pain that cracks beneath the question, but Jack has known him and known him for so long, since the dawn of time, and he knows the scent of pain like a shark knows blood in the water. He brushes Bruce’s cheek with his fingertips, his wounded heart in his knotted throat.

“Learning how to walk again,” he answers, rather than list the tired itinerary of his whirlwind underworld tour. The tailors, the old boltholes, warehouses and docks and bear-traps left ready to spring at any moment. He’s been learning where the new edges of the map are, whose territory is whose now, and what’s become of his old assets. He burned most of them in that last grand hurrah, the parade and the toxin, with the expectation that it _would_ be the last. He hadn’t held anything back.

Still, it’s not _all_ gone. Certain non-liquid assets, real estate, and of course all the accumulated intell resources of nearly ten years running amok in Gotham’s underworld. The process of refamiliarizing himself has been relatively unchallenging.

“Is that where you want to take us?” Bruce asks. There’s a wary set to his eyes, a retreat. “Back to the start? You and I?”

Jack can taste his heart on his tongue now; the damn thing won’t stop rising. “You can’t blame a guy for wanting to know,” he says, and means more than just the state of his bank account or the location of his safe house. For a year he was a paper man, homeless and history-less, a glass bottle lost in the wind-slashed sea.

Bruce considers him for a moment, and then softens. He nods, the motion nearly lost in the swing of the dance. “So what now?” he says.

All the eyes of Gotham’s high society are on them, following them across the dance floor, mesmerized. They never did officially come out, the two of them, as a couple. It was an open secret, of course, but still. Shadows and mirrors. Jack-as-John-Doe was so demure, so _accommodating_.

What now? Jack looks from the glittering crowd back to Bruce.

“A little birdie tells me you’re doing _fine_ work cleaning up Gotham’s ever-repellant streets,” Jack says. “Wearing your Kevlar, are you? Minding your autopilot?”

Bruce says nothing. There’s a twitch in his cheek as he tries not to look over his shoulder.

“It _occurs_ to me,” Jack says, as if it was only just occurring to him, “that the time may come on those mean streets when you need someone on your side. A hand from the darkness, eh?”

“Is that you?” Bruce says.

Jack purses his lips and nods at the ceiling. “Could be,” he says, “could be.”

“Maybe what I _need_ isn’t a hand from the darkness,” Bruce counters. “Maybe I don’t _want_ anyone creeping around on my behalf, making deals behind my back.”

“You know as well as I do,” Jack says, “you’ve picked a grim and narrow road to walk, my darling. I’ll do what I can to try and keep you alive, but—”

“Jack,” Bruce says, and comes to a stop in the middle of the floor. His hands clasp Jack’s shoulders. “Jack, I didn’t ask you for this. I would never ask you for this. Stop trying to build me some kind of shadow kingdom out of basement doors and backdoor favors.”

Jack scowls at him. “Brucie, baby, you can be my enemy or my ally, and I want you to think _real_ careful about which one you’re courting right now.”

Bruce lets go of him, sighs, and digs the pad of a thumb into his own forehead. “Do you think you don’t have anything to offer me but your whole… _pale man_ shtick?”

Irritation shoots down Jack’s spine; he stiffens. “What else _is_ there?” he says.

“You’re one of the most brilliant chemists alive on Earth today,” Bruce says, sounding almost as exasperated as amused. “You’re an escape artist, a polyglot, not a half bad engineer, and more importantly, Jack, you’re the man who drank coffee with me on the balcony at six am on a night when I thought I was going to _die_ from how much I had already lost.”

Jack swallows. His heart is in his ears now—they’re pounding with his heartbeat, dim.

Bruce reaches for him. He pulls him in close, folds him against his strong chest, clutches him tight. The band starts another song, but neither of them take any notice.

“Come home,” Bruce says, against his cheek, a sigh and a prayer.

A shiver rattles Jack's vertebrae, no matter how he tries to hold himself still.

He didn’t—he never _planned_ to go back—maybe they wouldn’t love each other quite like they had before, in the blood and the glitter and the mayhem, but he had still imagined… something distant, suzerain and vassal, sovereign and servant. A kiss with a key, gifts left on windowsills, the brief sweet unity before inevitable parting.

It wasn’t a question of what would make him _happy_ , it was a question of roles, of duties. Of archetypes. _These_ were the midnights that Jack-as-Joker could still claim, and so he would.

“Come home,” Bruce whispers, his hands warm and solid and steadfast. “It doesn’t have to be forever. Just let me have tonight. Give me as many tonights as you’ll give me, and I won’t ask for more.”

Coffee and dawnlight—the taste of lukewarm wine in a quiet penthouse, among the fallen glitter, watching the sun come up—

Jack slumps into Bruce’s embrace, allowing himself to be held for the first time since the light and the caverns and the rebirth. If he's being honest with himself, his missed this brutally, with a bone-deep ache that he never really expected to heal. It was just another chronic pain in a body that was born into pain, a badge and a mantle.

“You need a chemist, huh,” he mutters.

“Desperately,” Bruce whispers. “The ice grenades are giving me _hell_ right now, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“That’s Freeze’s routine. You tryina get me sued for copyright infringement?”

“I have several _excellent_ lawyers on retainer, I promise you.”

He’s gotta smile. What else can he do? He's in love, again and again and _again_ , and if he doesn't let it carry him he will drown. He squeezes Bruce and then pulls back, jerks a thumb at the stairwell. “Alright, Mr. Smooth Negotiator. Take me home, then.”

 _God_ Bruce is hard to look at when he’s bleeding joy like the radiation of the sun, but Jack would happily go blind for the chance to stand here in it forever. Jack-as-John-Doe would have never asked for more than this, but—

Jack sweeps Bruce up into his own kind of embrace, catching that handsome face in his hands. There’s a collective hiss from people forgetting to pretend that they aren’t watching, of people drawing in an anticipatory breath all around them. Ah, Jack _does_ love to be at the center of the spotlight. He’d forgotten.

Jack pulls him into a kiss. It’s warmth and surprise, it’s confetti and the moment of champagne bursting under a cork, golden bubbles, it is _midnight_ , midnight, midnight!

Jack draws back and the room tipsily cheers, unsure what is happening but understanding instinctively that it is a happy ending, the kind of moment that comes only a handful of times in a normal life. Bruce stares at him, overwhelmed with a happiness so heavy that it almost looks like pain.

“I’ll call us a cab,” Jack says. “You go kiss some cheeks, or whatever it is you rich people do.”

And he does. They do. He loses track of the people who come up to wish him their best, who want to shake his hand. It’s funny. This is the warmest reception he’s ever gotten at a reception. Jack-as-John-Doe never felt at home here—always the intruder, always the impostor, 50% guilt and 50% cheap shoes. But here he is, after all, the prodigal son.

You get kidnapped and presumed dead for a measly month and then all of a sudden you’re everyone’s favorite underdog. He doubts any of these people remember his name, but they all certainly _are_ glad to see him, now.

Gotham loves a show! He grins and snatches a popcorn shrimp from a passing tray as Bruce says his final goodbyes, extricating himself from the arms of several pretty girls. Gotham _does_ love a show. It's predictable that way; comforting even, maybe.

He doesn’t know what comes next. He’s got a feeling it’s going to be a long road, but that’s a better road than the short one. One night at a time. He can take one night at a time, one morning, one dawn and one midnight. He finds that he want to go home. He wants to _have_ a home, which is something that the Joker never had.

In the back of the taxi, Bruce takes his hand and squeezes it. The radio is playing that old Vera Lynn song, _some sunny day_ , as the wind whips confetti from the far away spectacle of the ball-drop countdown past them. The cab driver remarks that Bruce looks a lot like that Wayne guy, wonder where _he_ is on a night like tonight, probably getting lucky if there's any justice, and they all toast the driver’s tiny plastic bottles of pineapple flavored vodka to the health of That Wayne Guy, Wherever He Is.

It's dime-store vodka, and it tastes like dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> [ >Play](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM_VmN6ytk&index=12&t=0s&list=PL18Z5FjZ7wjNXTITxSxcbV7lMTVRWWyiL)


End file.
